During Friday’s Cuomo PrimeTime, host Chris Cuomo closed the show by praising Arizona Republican Senator Jeff Flake’s decision to demand an FBI investigation into the sexual assault allegation against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, delaying the Senate vote on his confirmation by a week. Not surprisingly, Flake received media acclaim after bragging about donating to Alabama senatorial candidate Doug Jones.
Cuomo painted a dystopian picture of the hearing and its aftermath: “Just as it seemed our Senators could feed nothing but their own base political instincts and that a SCOTUS member, a swing vote no less, would be made as a rush to judgment with so much hanging in the air and over the head of the nominee.”
He then described Flake’s decision to cave to Democrats and push for FBI investigation into flimsy allegations with no corroborating witnesses as “the sunshine of compromise and common ground.”
According to Cuomo, two recently deceased elder statesmen would have approved of Flake’s decision to work with Senate Democrats, specifically Senator Chris Coons of Delaware: “You could almost see Teddy (Kennedy) and John (McCain) smiling down on their colleagues and their consternation.”
It actually seems more likely that “Teddy” is smiling about the fact that Senate Democrats have taken a page out of his playbook when it comes to smearing and slandering Republican judicial nominees.
Cuomo continued:
All of the sudden, you hear Senators Coons and Flake, from different parties, very different pages when it comes to Kavanaugh’s fitness, but they both saw this process as what it was lacking. So then something happened. Atypical, without being forced, not because there was a quid pro quo, Flake used his all important vote to do something just because he thought it was right. To be fair to the allegations, to the accusers, and to the judge, let’s remove this specter of unknown about the allegations and have the FBI investigate. Amen!
After walking through the likely process of the FBI investigation, Cuomo gushed over Flake while playing a video of far-left protesters harassing the beleaguered Flake in an elevator: “Those women who cornered Flake and demanded he look at them in the eye, he saw you, he heard you, and he made this happen.”
It seems doubtful that Cuomo and his colleagues in the media would have the same praise for “bipartisanship” had a handful of Democratic Senators decided to buck the radical left and vote for Kavanaugh. The media only praises “bipartisanship” when it works in their favor.
Cuomo concluded his “Closing Argument” by wishing that “the best is yet to come.” By “the best,” he most certainly means the defeat of Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court.
Cuomo did at least get one thing right when he said that we are “heading into what could be a turbulent week.” That’s definitely an understatement. As for the heated rhetoric surrounding the Kavanaugh nomination, it wouldn’t come as a surprise if “the worst is yet to come.” For that, Kavanaugh and his family and friends can thank the media’s new favorite Republican: Senator Jeff Flake.
A transcript of the relevant portion of Cuomo PrimeTime is below. Click “expand” to read more.
Cuomo Prime Time
09/28/18
09:56 PM
CHRIS CUOMO: It is always darkest before dawn. We lived that in the last 24 hours. Just as it seemed our Senators could feed nothing but their own base political instincts and that a SCOTUS member, a swing vote no less, would be made as a rush to judgment with so much hanging in the air and over the head of the nominee. And then the sunshine of compromise and common ground. You could almost see Teddy and John smiling down on their colleagues and their consternation. All of the sudden, you hear Senators Coons and Flake, from different parties, very different pages when it comes to Kavanaugh’s fitness, but they both saw this process as what it was lacking. So then something happened. Atypical, without being forced, not because there was a quid pro quo, Flake used his all-important vote to do something just because he thought it was right. To be fair to the allegations, to the accusers, and to the judge, let’s remove this specter of unknown about the allegations and have the FBI investigate. Amen! But just like the “darkest before dawn” quote, this is not as true as it seems. It is not darkest before dawn. It’s darkest around midnight. And the quote is not from the Bible. It’s from Thomas Fuller. And the FBI is not starting a criminal investigation or anything like it. In truth, we’re not exactly sure what they’ll be looking at. At this point, we know more about what it is not…not a new criminal look into the guilt or innocence. It’s not going to be about veracity. They’re not going to say who’s lying. But we do know it’s limited in scope, whatever that means, and certainly limited in duration. The last may be the most troubling. A name we’ve not heard much in this process now just became a big deal; Christopher Wray, the head of the FBI. Now, the President, the White House, they can make suggestions to him. But technically he decides what he does and how long it takes. It’s really his call. And if he says, I can’t do it in this time, or if they come back in a week and say, you know, we found some stuff we need to dig into a little bit more, well then what? The supplemental FBI background investigation is supposedly limited to current credible allegations. Which are those? Who will be interviewed? What if they say no? What if they discover this legit lead in the course of this? These are beguiling questions, and we need to know the answers. Now, this development, does it make Kavanaugh’s confirmation more or less likely? I could argue it either way. Something new could come up. Something alleged could be corroborated, or he could be cleared by nothing being corroborated, nothing from any of it. All we know for sure is that there will be more respect and review given to the allegations than was expected when today started. Those women who cornered Flake and demanded he look at them in the eye, he saw you, he heard you, and he made this happen. And think about it. If the Senators can make something happen on something so ugly and hostile and partisan, even when it wasn’t convenient, even when it didn’t play to the advantage of the party with the leverage and was so unpopular, they did it simply because it was right and fair. Imagine what they could do on so many other issues. There’s so much more common ground to be staked out. So, hopefully, as a Friday night wish heading into what could be a turbulent week, hopefully the best is yet to come.
